[email protected] wrote:The rule of thumb is NO MORE than 100 lbs / HP. So adding your GVWR + the toad weight, and dividing by 275, comes to 101.5 lbs/HP.

So that rig is just over the recommended. You might check to see if the engine can be chipped for more HP (usually no more then 50 HP if I recall is possible) and if the tranni could handle the extra HP, but only if the RV is a great deal.

And of course, it never hurts to just go up hills slowly. My old '94 Cummins 190 HP would occasionally get down to 25 MPH going up a long hill and sometimes even as low as 15 MPH, BUT, it got a good solid 10 MPG too.

Now with my 330HP Cat, I'm at 88 lbs/HP so I'm pleased with that, but it only gets 8.4 MPG.

Thanks for that, great formula to know. Interestingly, they put the same engine in the 33' version as well so I'd assume it would struggle even more!

Just the two of us, soon to be retired folks
Madison-the loveable old lady of the dog clan
Riley-our rescued Black Lab
Scout-the new crazy Australian Shepherd puppy

Thanks for that, great formula to know. Interestingly, they put the same engine in the 33' version as well so I'd assume it would struggle even more!

Yes, you do see that, but you also see that those RV with less than adequate HP are of lighter (aka cheaper) construction. I checked that out over the years and it seemed to hold true. If you inspected a longer RV with the same HP engine found in shorter RVs, the quality of the interior and exterior components suffered and they seemed to be lighter in general. So you'd have lightweight cabinetry, few steel framed pieces of furniture, smaller and lighter mattress, thinner roof and side walls, and so forth. Just something to be aware of.

hotjag1 wrote:My guess is that you will be going about the same speed up hills with the 275 hp diesel or the V-10. The big difference is that you won't have an engine screaming at 4000 rpm right beside you if you go with the diesel.

Banks Power Pack System and 5 Star Tuning takes care of the high RPM's on the 2006 and newer V-10's in the mountains, ask how I know..

hotjag1 wrote:My guess is that you will be going about the same speed up hills with the 275 hp diesel or the V-10. The big difference is that you won't have an engine screaming at 4000 rpm right beside you if you go with the diesel.

Banks Power Pack System and 5 Star Tuning takes care of the high RPM's on the 2006 and newer V-10's in the mountains, ask how I know..

Test drive the Breeze and test drive a similar size gas MH see how each handles. There are other issues beside performance to look at. But to answer the OP, a good test is to time what it takes to go from 40-60 MPH the MH with the shortest time will have the better performance. As DP's get shorter the HP goes down. A gas MH will have the same HP in a 39ft MH all the way down to a 24 ft MH. Also think that DP's are maybe twice the weight of equal length MH's. So a 362 HP 30 ft gas MH that weights maybe 13,000 lbs compared to a 30 ft DP with 275 HP that weights maybe 26,000 lbs will have much better performance.